Because tradition remains the mother's milk of Virginia's old guard, sensible change will not be forthcoming in Richmond this year.

Last week, the House of Delegates Rules Committee defeated a proposal that would open the door to allowing the state's voters to do what those in every other state can - re-elect a governor.

Call the timing sad irony in its extreme, coming the same week that Virginia's only two-term governor of the modern era was buried. Mills Godwin Jr. first became governor as a Democrat in 1966 and then, after four years out of office, again in 1974 as a Republican.

Del. H. Robert Purkey, R-Virginia Beach, sponsored the gubernatorial-term bill. "One of the reasons for Godwin's effectiveness was how he learned on the job, learned that a great deal of the problems need a long-term approach," he said Monday. " ... Having a governor that can succeed himself and have continuity of Cabinet members" will give the state the ability to create that.

As more powers have reverted to the states in recent years, governors now are chief executive officers of some of society's most complicated enterprises. A good governor can accomplish a lot in four years; a great one can work miracles given more time.

Witness welfare-reform champion Tommy Thompson, now serving his fourth term as governor of Wisconsin; James Hunt of North Carolina, who ran the economically thriving state from 1977 to 1985 and was elected governor again in 1992 and re-elected in 1996; and John Rowland in Connecticut, a former congressman who is the first governor to win the Excellence in State Government Award.

When it comes to in-demand Cabinet members, knowing they will only be employed at most for four years in Virginia, the resume game is surely going on soon after the halfway mark of a governor's term. Excellence in government, as in every other enterprise, depends on retaining talented, committed people. An automatic gubernatorial revolving door certainly puts that at risk.

Thankfully for Virginians, Del. Purkey is nothing if not persistent. This year marks the eighth time he has introduced the legislation. Purkey believes if the bill can get out of the House Rules Committee, a majority of whose current members wear tradition as a badge of honor, both chambers will approve it. In Virginia, a proposed constitutional amendment must be passed in two consecutive legislative sessions with an intervening election before reaching the voters.

Dramatic change is nothing new to the not-so-tradition-bound Virginia electorate, whose governor was appointed by the legislature from 1776 to 1852. (Patrick Henry earned the first appointment, followed by Thomas Jefferson.) In 1989, Virginia voters made L. Douglas Wilder the first African American elected governor in the nation's history.

Wilder, like many governors before and since, had his eyes on other prizes, knowing he could not seek re-election. For Wilder, it was the presidency or vice presidency.

For George Allen, who served as the Old Dominion's governor from 1994 to 1998, it was and is the U.S. Senate, as he prepares for a race against incumbent Democrat and former Virginia Gov. Charles Robb.

For the current governor, James Gilmore, who supported Purkey's bill even though it cannot apply to him, there is too little time to accomplish all he would like.

"When you really start governing, it's almost time to leave," Wilder told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "The change would make for better continuity in government. I think it's a change the people of Virginia would welcome."